Foreplay and Intimacy:Dance of Love

“Foreplay reflects the politics of intimacy and power in your relationship…(it) is where boundaries of intimacy and eroticism are negotiated.” ~Passionate Marriage

In long term relationships, foreplay becomes a kind of battleground.  It’s a place where real and imagined wounds get re-opened.  It’s a place where we decide how loveable we are based on how our partner treats us.

Foreplay is intended to bring a couple closer together.  It is intended to get us “in the mood,” to create the intimacy necessary to feel really good during intercourse.  Ideally, foreplay ends when you’re both so hot and bothered that if you don’t move forward, you’ll explode. 

Is that how you experience it?  Probably not, especially if you’re in a long term relationship; it’s probably more like an unwritten formula or code designed to get each partner just interested enough that they can get on with the main act.  Possibly you experience attempts at foreplay as an annoyance, or possibly as the only fun part of the sexual experience. 

You and your partner likely have a series of moves you make, based on past history of what you each may have liked at one time.  Whether or not you still enjoy those moves has probably never been explored.  Speaking for myself, formulaic moves are a disaster, because my body is fickle.  What turns me on one day may be annoying the next.  This is confusing at best to my partner in his desire to please me, but exploring that—by talking with words, mouth and hands—creates an opportunity for deeper intimacy.

Opening to intimacy requires a willingness to be vulnerable.  Being vulnerable only feels safe when we have a strong sense of self.  If our sense of self is reflected, it is dependent on what someone else says or thinks about us.  In that case, we give over our power to another person and allow him or her to define us.  When that happens, we are vulnerable all the time in a negative way.  We don’t feel safe because we never know what our partner may do or say to knock us off balance. 

The first step in opening to intimacy is to find your center.  Figure out who you are, what you like and don’t like, and how you want to be treated and spoken to.  Then become a champion for yourself—stick up for yourself as you would defend a young child.  Learn how to take care of yourself, figure out what needs you have and learn how to get those needs met.  This may rock your relationship boat at first, but ultimately it will make it stronger. 

Real romance is only possible when both partners can stand on their own two feet.  True intimacy is only possible when both partners are willing to be vulnerable in the face of the other; to offer your open heart knowing that the other has to ability to reject you, but that rejection will not alter the love you have for yourself.  Intimacy begins in your own heart; it is a grand love affair with yourself.